TMNT versus Aliens & Predator
by Andrew NDB
Summary: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are whisked away to D'Hoonib, where they must do battle with not only the horrific Aliens but the Predators as well.
1. Prologue

_**A BRIEF HISTORY** TMNT MIRAGE COMICS VOLUME 1, #4-7: After Splinter was abducted by Dr. Baxter Stockman's mousers to remain missing even after Baxter was brought in, the Turtles set out to search for him. Instead, having discovered that TCRI (Techno-Cosmic Research Institute) was the company responsible for the canister of mutagenic ooze that mutated them fifteen years previously, they investigate a building in downtown Manhattan that bears the TCRI name, finding those working within it to be aliens called Utroms masquerading as human beings. When they found Splinter inside, they mistakedly think the aliens were attempting to kill or torture him, so they proceed to fight them. Their fight took the Turtles onto a translocation/Transmat (think of it as an extremely long-range Star Trek transporter) Device that accidentally warps them to Peblak City on the planet D'hoonib. There, they found themselves fighting a vicious race of beings called the Triceratons, as well as being on the run from local Human Federation trooper authorities. After being captured by the Triceratons and taken to an orbital arena, they managed to escape home after a bout in a Triceraton tournament._

* * *

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**PROLOGUE**

The Leader's entrance into the belly of their ship made the other yautja clear aside. As he made his way into the dark, musky nest the others had constructed out of acid-resilient alloys, the yautja's deadly captive came into view.

Gagged and bound in unbreakable dlex binds was a black-skinned creature with six limbs that, even with its appendages coiled back in gigantic chains and shackles, stood at over twenty feet in height. It was the beastly Hard Meat Queen, and she was continuing to serve her purpose in the darkness of the makeshift nest the Leader's brethren had prepared for it. Even as he watched the creature, the many tubes and IVs in place at different points around its body continued to pump the queen with more and more of the yautja's genetically enhanced hormone to accelerate egg production. Yes, it would be seen to that she served her purpose in as efficient a manner as possible.

For a moment the Queen seemed to acknowledge the Leader's gaze. Her mighty ridged, eyeless head turned to meet it and she released a long, high-pitched banshee-like hiss.

The conveyor belts and interlocking screening devices that ran beneath her winding egg sac carried her eggs off into the awaiting _Ne_'_dtesei,_ which would ferry them to the planet of their destination upon entry approach.

Satisfied with the situation, the Leader whirled around and started back to the bridge of the ship, his cape whipping around him.

They of the black armored exoskeletons and acid blood, the Hard Meat, the _kainde amedha,_ would be used for the yautja's purposes once again. They were the ultimate prey, the opponents that could turn a battle around in an instant and slay even the most decorated of yautja warriors. The Leader had slain twenty of the _kainde amedha_ in a truly brutal Hunt three years ago that he alone survived, and he had the trophies to prove it. It was by his victory against the Hard Meat that he was given the honor of Leadership, a role he did not take lightly.

The Leader had an assembly of un-Blooded, untried adolescent warriors waiting within the ship. The world had been selected. The eggs were ready to be delivered. All the pieces had fallen into place, and the time was nearly at hand. The anxiety could be felt through every corner of the ship.

Reaching the bridge, the Leader could see the planet in question, its sphere now encompassing over half the viewer with their proximity. Gray and blue the world was, with visible space stations of assorted kinds scattered across its orbit. Where the other Hunt-selected worlds were typically barren, unsophisticated rocks with only minimal indigenous life, this planet was a technological world, one rife with the _pyode amedha_ oomans.

Without question, an unconventional world in which to carry out the Hard Meat Hunt. But the Leader was, by most measures, an unconventional yautja. He considered the change in setting would only heighten the challenge, which was what any true yautja should aspire to do in the time of the Hunt. He wished to raise the bar.

Turning to his side, a quartet of his yautja disciples awaited his word. With a ceremonious bow of his head, he gave it.

The Hunt was on.


	2. Chapter 1 : The Gathering

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter One  
THE GATHERING**

"Okay, what the _hell_ just happened?"

A moment ago they were in April and Casey's apartment, quietly playing a Nintendo 64 video game with Shadow. Then, without any provocation or warning, they entered... the maelstrom. Energy swirling and cascading about their bodies, when their stomachs settled and their vision finally returned to something resembling normal they found they were no longer in the apartment. For certain.

Michaelangelo shook his head, Raphael's abrupt shouting making his ears ring. His vision having been reduced to a dizzying blur he fought to regain his footing. "Man," he groaned, "I dunno."

"First there was that light…" Leonardo spoke, feverishly rubbing his eyes, "then… that _feeling…"_

"Shesus, it was like we were being fuckin' turned inside out!" Raph snarled.

"Yes. But somehow… it felt _familiar._ Y'know?"

Mike got to his feet, his vision back for the most part. His eyes still felt like he'd been sitting cooped up in the dark for six hours before suddenly walking outside to a bright, sunny afternoon. "He's right. It _did_ feel kinda familiar."

Leo gazed around. They were by the coast of an ocean, standing a few kilometers away from an island of pale gray, tightly-packed skyscrapers. _Big_ skyscrapers, ones that lived up to their namesake. Ones the likes of which made New York City's pale in comparison. That fact gave Leo the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Donatello didn't appear daunted by the experience. Standing apart from the others, he stood straight up as his head swiveled around, scanning his surroundings with his red cybernetic eye. "This is not Earth," he spoke, continuing his probing.

"No shit, Sherlock! Where _are_ we?"

"Judging from the surrounding terrain, analysis of those skyscrapers…" A hovering aircar not so unlike their own blew overhead and made them jump as it afterburned toward the island off the coast. "That aircar…" Don added, "… we are back on D'hoonib, the city of Peblak."

_"D'hoonib?"_ the others gasped in near unison.

Don shrugged, his bulky metallic arms raising in a show of bewilderment. "Where else?"

"This is the place we met Fugitoid," Mike spoke, remembering the incident three years before. "And where we first ran into the Triceratons."

Something came to Don. "Then those lights and that feeling we got… we were in an Utrom transmat device!"

"The Utroms brought us here?" Leo asked, curiously. The Utroms were the highly technological alien race that had lived for some twenty years on Earth disguised as humans. The chemical waste they produced in New York in their "TCRI" factory was what had mutated the Turtles from ordinary pets to their current sentient and humanoid status. "This isn't even their homeworld. If they wanted us, wouldn't they have translocated us to Utromis? D'hoonib is just a backwater fringe world."

Don gave a shrug. "Don't look at me, guys. I may be the cyborg of this bunch, but I don't have all the answers."

"So what now, fearless leader?" Raph quipped.

"Well, what _can_ we do?" Leo turned his gaze to the mainland behind them. There were as many skyscrapers as there were on the distant island but these were not as crammed together.

Yet there was something clearly amiss. Several buildings and structures were lying in almost complete ruin, having either collapsed on themselves or crashed onto nearby buildings. Almost all of the few that remained intact were billowing smoke out of their shattered windows, painting the crimson sky a sickly shade of amber. Leo spotted several raging fires between the cracks in buildings.

"I don't remember Peblak City being like this."

"Because it _wasn't_ like this. Something's up."

Raph took off his eyepatch and pulled his hockey mask over his face, covering his scarred side. Drawing his twin sai, he motioned to the others. "We gonna sit on our asses out here all day or are we gonna check it out?"

The three exchanged a look, then followed.

* * *

Pebak City had become a wasteland.

This fact became clearer and clearer as the Turtles made their way down the fragmented streets of the sprawling alien megalopolis. Buildings torn and ripped apart in various states of disrepair were plain to see, smoking and burning and filling the air and horizon with a thick, reddish aura. The air reeked of death and was acrid, sulphuric with a hint of... something else, something more humid and dank.

Something _alien._

"Where _is_ everybody, anyway?" Mike asked. Aside from the stray aircar they'd seen streaking toward the island off the central coast, they had yet to see a single indigenous being of D'hoonib.

"Beats the hell outta me," Raph replied.

"Wonder where all the Federats are at." Donatello furrowed his brow at the cityscape. "Those Human Federation guys had this city bottled up pretty tight if I remember correctly."

Mike stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly jabbing a finger to the side. "Hey, guys, look!"

"It's the bar!"

The bar they'd frequented on their last visit was in plain sight, the entrance visible within an alley they were passing. A sign was posted unceremoniously beside the open doorway: "Portneroy's Spaceport Jockeybar," accompanied by two smaller signs that warned "Watch your step," and "No tour bots."

Anxiously making their way inside and down the staircase, they expected to be immediately greeted by the same assortment of alien patrons they'd seen last time. Instead, they found it deserted.

"Great," Raph muttered. "Nobody's home."

"Waittaminute…" Don said. A compartment on his left shoulder popped open, and a moment later the bar became flooded with radiant light.

All of a sudden, the Turtles could see the bar for the mausoleum it was.

Intestine-like organic fibers were strewn about the floor, all branching from the walls and ceilings. The walls and ceilings themselves were encrusted and honeycombed with what looked like the compacted remains of bones and flesh—all of it crafted with insect-like precision and symmetry.

"There's _bodies…"_

Don was right. Pasted at random intervals from the slime excretion-encrusted honeycomb were alien bodies—some humanoid, others with less-distinguishable inhuman attributes.

Just looking at the collection of corpses made Mike feel sick to his stomach. "My _God…"_

Don approached one of the humanoid bodies, taking a moment to look at one of the knee-high organic pods that lay scattered around the bar. The one he studied was open, its interior visibly empty. Grunting, he moved to the body, examining it intently. "Its chest…" he spoke, indicating a gaping hole above the sternum of the body. Ribs protruded outward from the hole. "It's like something _exploded_ inside of it." A quick glance around revealed the rest of the bodies to have similar chest holes.

"What's this?"

Don turned to see Mike holding up a giant crab-like creature, a tube draped uselessly from its underside, slime trickling out. Its eight fingers curled in _rigor-mortis._ It thankfully appeared to be long dead. "You got me."

Something else caught his eye. A body, a three-eyed alien with a purplish hue to its skin pigment just beside the corpse he'd observed. It didn't have a hole in its chest.

As Don took a step toward it, the body sprang to life.

_"Ahh!"_

Its eyes shot open, looking pleadingly to Donatello and the others. "Vas pal _koop!"_ it frantically yelped in speckled speech. _"Vas pal koop! Vas pa—"_

It broke off as its words became caught in its throat. A sickening tearing sound could be heard, then followed by the muffled noise of breaking bones. A smattering of blood burst from the alien's chest, covering Don and Raph.

"What in the…"

A black creature of an eel's body and a shark's teeth erupted from the alien's chest. They only caught a glimpse of it before it landed on the organic-tendrilled floor and slithered off into the darkness.

"That was… weird…"

Leo uneasily turned to Don, who was standing paralyzed before the alien corpse. "What… what do you make of this…?" he asked him.

Don stood as still as a statue, his gaze nervously fixed on the body he had just seen produce a diabolic offspring from its chest. "I-it's hard to say… I mean… I jus—"

Their only warning was a hiss. Then there was no time for anyone to react.

As if the walls themselves were coming to life, something large and black lurched out of the wall and wrapped its arms around Donatello. Its long, segmented tail whipping around, it struck both Michaelangelo and Raphael clear across the bar.

Leo instinctively went for his daisho, bringing both katana swords to full readiness as he waited for a good look at his target.

As if it knew it was being observed, the creature hurled Donatello aside with rabid ferocity, turning to face Leo. Its sleek, glistening skin was beetle-black, blending almost perfectly with the darkness. It had a long, smooth, banana-shaped head that protruded far behind its ribbed shoulders. It had no eyes, no nose of any kind.

All it had were teeth.

The creature maliciously hissed, opening its mouth to reveal a second jaw that slowly telescoped outward. It reared itself back, coiling to spring forward. It reached a six-fingered hand toward Leonardo as it finally did so.

Leo was ready.

Sidestepping it, he brought a katana around and under, vaulting to the side and skillfully cleaving the creature's misshapen head clean from the neck. Its body spasmed, its limbs flailing as the creature came to a grueling death. It dropped.

Leo screamed out loud, dropping his right sword as he clutched his arm. It felt as if it were on _fire!_ Peering down at it, he saw his forearm viciously burnt, whole sections of flesh scorched away nearly to the bone. Looking to his sword, however, he found it to be dissolved almost completely from the hilt up, acrid smoke rising from its melted stump.

"That _thing…"_ Leo rasped accusingly, "… jesus, it's got… _acid_ for blood or something…"

Raph stopped his sai thrust in mid-air. He had been preparing to give the corpse something to remember before Leo's words hit him like a two-ton brick. "What?"

"Colonel, I've _found_ them!" a deep human voice called from the staircase exit.

Turning toward the voice, the Turtles saw three blue-uniformed men storm inside, brandishing their firearms as they immediately ran toward them.

"Federation troopers," Donatello spoke.

They remembered the goons well. The minute they'd materialized on D'hoonib last time, troopers like them had stalked them because they thought they were accomplices to the Fugitoid, who they thought was carrying data on a Transmat device that both the Human Federation and the Triceraton Republic were after.

The lead trooper stopped before Leo, looked to the corpse of the creature he had just slew, then saluted. "Colonel Cavanaugh, Fifth Brigade, sir!" he addressed Leonardo and his brothers with an actual showing of respect. "Sirs, I've been given orders to escort you four to Peblak Bay HQ. General Blanque wishes to see you."

"Blanque?" Raph spat. "That's the asshole that had half this planet's military chasing us when we were kids! What does he want with us? Is he the one who brought us here?"

"I'm just a colonel, sirs. Please, time is critical."

Leo massaged his burnt arm, then sheathed his good sword. He turned to the others. "I say we hear him out."

Michaelangelo gave a helpless sigh. "We've gotta find out what's going on here."

"Agreed."

"Yeah. Why not?"

Leo motioned the Colonel to the stairway with a nod. "Lead the way, trooper."


	3. Chapter 2 : Legacy of the Hunter

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Two  
LEGACY OF THE HUNTER**

General Jordan Blanque's office was about what they expected it to be. Spacious, packed with technological marvels, a prominent desk, and with a large circular window on the rear wall that provided an excellent view of the waterfront.

"Welcome, Turtles," the General mock-warmly greeted them. turning in his chair as he heard them enter. Blanque was humanoid, visually no different than any Earthborn man. In Earth years, he could easily look in his late sixties. Wrinkles covering every inch of his face, he had his thin grayish white hair cut in a short flattop.

Raphael was the second to enter behind Leonardo and two armed Federat troopers. Leo's arm had already received full burn treatment and had been well bandaged. "Let's get on with it, Blanque," he said. "Why are we here, what do you want, and how soon can we leave?"

Blanque smiled. "I was the one who summoned you from Earth. After the Human Federation finally secured the rights to obtain and reproduce the Utroms' Transmat Device, we now have translocation technology." His smile widened. The Turtles had the feeling the technological exchange had been less than diplomatic, and the Federation most likely threatened it out of the Utroms. "Well, _I_ do, anyway."

"That still leaves the question—_why?"_

"And a good question it is. I'll just be straight out about it, then." Blanque stood from his table and leaned forward. He pursed his lips, speaking with no showing of emotion, "This world is about one week from complete oblivion."

Leonardo grunted. "No kidding. Just what the hell was that… _thing_… I fought in the bar?"

"Let me explain. Jeffries, if you please." One of the two officers guarding the office's door moved to the general's side, manipulating something just beneath the desk's overhang.

The room went pitch black, a holographic image immediately popping into existence above a smooth onyx device placed atop the desk.

"There are malevolent forms of life out there, my friends." The holoprojector switched from an overlaying image of D'hoonib to produce a chase-camera angle on a yellowish-green spaceship. Its alien-sculpted engine turbines leaving a thick trail of atmospheric flame in its wake, it could be seen closing in on D'hoonib's Northern Hemisphere, then disappearing. "Sentient beings that take pleasure in killing in all of its more glorified forms. There is an alien race originating from a homeworld we have never seen that is comprised entirely of hunters. It is said they call themselves the _yaut-ja,_ though they have been universally known and feared as the 'Predators' on this side of the galaxy."

"Predators…"

"The _yautja_ is a race that is based on the mixed principles of honor, glory, and bloodlust. They live by a code that drives them to seek out the worthiest opponents the galaxy has to offer and, as such, battle them on equal terms to prove themselves in the eyes of their fellow hunters and warriors. For centuries now, they have had a ritual hunt carried out on random worlds. They seed planets with a very unique race of aliens. Xenomorphs. Feral creatures that gestate inside living hosts, then burst to grow to adulthood in a matter of days. Their scientific name is Linguafoeda Achernosis though, like the Predators, they are nicknamed by many in the field simply the 'Aliens.' A little bit trite nonetheless, yes?"

"That crab Mike found…" Donatello spoke. "It must have come from that pod I saw—they attach themselves to hosts' faces and plant the Alien embryos in their larynx! The embryo… it must grow inside, then burst out."

"Pre_cise_ly!" Blanque commended him. "These Aliens are evil unleashed—once a queen is born and begins producing eggs there can be no stopping the spread of their vile population. Aside from resorting to… shall we say… more militant means. But I refuse to let it it come to that without giving it a fighting shot."

Michaelangelo swallowed. The thought of an even bigger version of the hideous creature Leo had fought in the bar sent a chill down his shell. "A… _queen_…?"

"Yes, the Aliens operate in a typical hive-like matriarchal fashion. The asexual Queen controls her drones and warriors, who bring viable hosts into her hive to be impregnated with the embryos within her eggs' facehugger 'crabs,' as you said."

"But the Predators…"

"The _yautja_ utilize the Aliens as makeshift opponents. From best we can tell, they seed worlds with Aliens so aspiring _yautja_ warriors may test their mettle against them. Those that emerge victorious against the Aliens are rewarded with high honor and respect amongst their kind.

"Seven days ago a meteor struck eastern Peblak. At least, we thought it was a meteor. It turned out to be a _yaghtrakh,_ a _yautja_ mobile Alien egg dispenser that was sent down before the _yautja_ themselves arrived. The _yaghtrakh_ moved about D'hoonib's surface, planting Alien eggs at set intervals. Our planet's indigenous wildlife as well as careless pedestrians that became curious about these eggs, no doubt attempting to inspect them, all got facehuggers for their trouble. Each of the fools unwittingly went on to produce the first batch of Aliens to besiege D'hoonib.

"As the population of Aliens began to swell, our people became caught in the crossfire of the _yautja_'s ritual hunt. The few survivors have fled here, to Peblak Bay Island and the Human Federation's military planet-based headquarters on D'hoonib. Yet even as we speak, tribes of _yautja_ are testing themselves against the Aliens, fighting them in ceremonial combat amidst the ravaged cityscape of Peblak." The holoprojector switched to a bird's-eye-view of a dark alleyway, where distant figures could barely be seen struggling with other figures. The transmission was apparently live, and wasn't coming in with very good resolution.

Raphael wasn't impressed. "And we're here because…?"

"I'm not going to lie to you. We need you. I need you. The Human Federation _cannot_ handle the threat our world faces alone. Not without forfeiting the planet." The man sighed. "We are well aware of your prowess in the way of combat, having seen you manage to skillfully elude my troops a couple of years ago. I also learned of a rather interesting tournament carried out in a Triceraton arena. The four of you beat the Triceraton Republic's greatest warriors, then escaped back to your homeworld. Earth, isn't it? This impressed Federat High Command, and, quite frankly, impressed me. When the time came for us to summon capable beings who could defend D'hoonib in its hour of need I had few candidates in mind but yourselves."

"Look, buddy, I'm sure we're all fucking flattered by now, but I'll tell you right n—"

"That's _enough,_ Raphael!" Leonardo silenced Raph. He turned back to Blanque. "What exactly is it you want us to do, General? Do you expect us to go out and kill the entire population of _yautja_ and Aliens for your people?"

Blanque seemed surprised that Leo would even suggest that, even if he was half-joking. "Oh, no, I couldn't expect that of anyone. Every clan of _yautja_ warriors that participate in Alien hunts such as this are led by a chief warrior, one that spearheads the hunt. With this leader gone, the others combat each other and will fight it out with each other to determine who the next leader will be. This will leave the _yautja_ confused and vulnerable to our men's aerial sweeps."

"So we take out this Predator leader… what about the Aliens?"

"The Aliens can be contained and eradicated at a later time if all else fails—they are merely a hazard best avoided for now. It is the _yautja_ that are the threat that we are unequipped to handle."

"Why is that?"

"The _yautja_ are not simply alien hunters. They have technology the likes of which the Human Federation isn't likely to see for another two centuries. They can make themselves invisible with personal cloaking devices, and possess weapons that would put our standard-issue plasma casters to shame."

Leonardo narrowed his eyes. "I thought they fight their opponents on equal terms."

"They do. A _yautja_ will not turn his weaponry on an opponent that does not have equivalent weaponry. Which is where the problem lies. Without their firearms, Federation troopers are no match for a _yautja_. Yet with their firearms, they get systematically eliminated by the _yautja_'s own weaponry and stealth." The Genreal gave a dry chuckle. "Catch 22, I think they would say on your world. From what I understand of you from my sources, you are ninja on Earth, trained from birth to be assassins with the martial arts of _ninjitsu._ You can fight the _yautja_ on equal terms and stand a hell of a better chance at victory than we ever could."

Raphael stepped in front of the general's desk and waved his arms in frustration. "I don't know how you guys can even think about helping this asshole out!"

"Raph…"

"No, I'm not going to shut up this time! Why the hell should we stick our necks out for this guy? Maybe you guys forgot, but this is the shitface that had his goons chasing us from one end of Peblak to the other!"

"That was an unfortunate misunderstanding. We thought you were with the Fugitoid, a misunderstanding we later found that was unwitting on your part."

Leo faced Raph. "Raph, we're not just talking about General Blanque here. Or the Human Federation. We're talking about an entire _planet_ full of people—_innocent_ people—who are going to die unless we do something about it."

"Damn it, Leo! Don't you e—"

"Where is the honor in leaving a world to die?"

Raph opened his mouth as if to protest, but stopped himself short. Leo's words had the ring of truth to them. They all knew it.

"Will you help us?" Blanque asked.

The Turtles remained silent for a long, drawn out moment. They exchanged a glance. Then another.

* * *

Donatello stopped a moment to watch the aerial troop transport speed off back toward Peblak Bay.

"Wicked cool artillery," Raph commented. He brandished one of the plasma caster rifles that had been given to each of the Turtles except for Don, which were distributed "for Alien ambushes only." "Haven't been in a good gunfight since Casey and I took on Johnny Woo Woo those years back. Well, gunning down all those dozens of Antoine Puzorelli's hitmen counts, too, I—"

"The plasma casters aren't to be used against the _yautja,_ Raph!"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "Are we goin' in any particular direction or are we just gonna wander around with our asses in the air and hope we bump into these Predator dudes?"

Leo said nothing, continuing over the edge of the dock. That told enough to Raph, who accepted his silence as a "no."

"Aw, _sick!"_

Donatello winced as he watched Mike pull his foot from a pile of bloodied gore, apparently thrown from the rotting alien corpse a few meters away.

Leo kept on, only turning back a moment. "Come on, guys. We gotta keep going."

On an outland street laden with smoking wrecked cars and aircars alike, the Turtles found themselves back in central Peblak. In a region of the city not unlike the one they'd found themselves in a few hours ago, they made their way across the street to blend in with the shadows. It was nearly night.

"I hear something!" Donatello shouted, stopping dead in his tracks.

The Turtles went on full-alert, checking all sides of their devastated surroundings and checking their senses for any sign of danger.

"I don't hear anything."

"Me neither."

"Look, I'm the one that's got the ultrasonic amplified hearing here!" Don rebuked. "I can here a pin drop five kilometers away if I'm on the right bandwidth!"

"What do you hear?"

"Hissing… battle sounds… clashing… _squealing…"_

"Where?"

Don closed his eye, concentrating deeply. He lifted an arm, pointing a finger to their right in the general direction of a city block's intersection.

"Let's go!"

Running, they stealthily made a dash in the direction Don pointed.

Five minutes later they had crossed the intersection and were already a block away, just across the street from a collapsed supermarket building.

The Turtles could hear it now.

Turning, they saw what Don had heard earlier.

In brutal combat just outside an alley, a "Predator" and another one of the beetle-black "Aliens" engaged in a fierce one-on-one battle.

It was go time.


	4. Chapter 3 : Running the Gauntlet

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Three  
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET**

The battle was over quickly. Emitting a shrill elephant-like squeal, the Alien dropped before the masked "Predator"'s double-bladed wrist gauntlet as he thrust it under its jaw. Withdrawing his fist, he leapt aside, narrowly escaping an arterial rush of acid blood that ran from the gaping wounds onto the street. Each drop vaporized through entire feet of the concrete the instant it touched.

The victorious Predator turned to face the Turtles, noticing them for the first time. It sprawled out on the street, coiling like a jaguar in wait.

It was a devilish looking creature. Humanoid and at least seven feet tall in height, it wore a smooth, acid-speckled mask over its face. Black, tube-like dreadlocks hung ceremoniously from its head. Its avocado-yellow skin was visible through its chain mail armor, standing out even in the pitch black D'hoonib night.

Raphael flinched at the Predator, his lips curling in disgust. "What're you lookin' at, fuckface?" he snapped.

The creature remained still, moving its steady gaze over each of the Turtles. It stopped on Donatello. Then, unexpectedly, it laughed. It was a coarse, shrill, resounding laugh, but there was no mistaking it.

The Turtles heard a whirring sound coming from the Predator. Suddenly, ominously... three peculiar red dots appeared in a triangle on Don's chest plate.

Mike pointed a finger at it. "Oh jeeze, looks like some kind of las—" was all Don had time to say before what could only be described as a blue fireball flew from the Predator's shoulder to pelt him in the chest. He was thrown backwards, crashing into the driver's side of a parked aircar.

_"Don!_ Jesus, are you okay?"

An expression of pain and shock was displayed on Don's face. "What… do you _think…?!"_

The Predator laughed once more, then seemed to be keying in something on a mechanical device on its forearm. The creature's body shimmered, and then a moment later became completely transparent. As if becoming pure water, its liquid-like translucent figure could be seen sprinting away from the alley to disappear at the intersection.

"We'll get that punk!" Raphael cracked his knuckles. "Oh yeah, we'll get him."

"Seemed like he was in an awful hurry," Mike observed. "Wonder why he didn't just fight us right here and now?"

"Scared him off is what we did—the four of us against just him and his lonesome. Yeah, real tough guys, these _yautja_ feebs are. Chicken shit space prissies is what I call'em."

With Leo and Mike's help, Don got to his feet. His gaze was fixed on the black, three inch-deep crater in his chest plate. "Now that was just plain rude," he said. He closed his eyes, concentrating. Before the eyes of his brothers, the living metal around the crater swirled and filled it, interweaving to return the entire chest plate to its normal appearance. Don had healed himself.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that," Mike interjected.

Leonardo backed away suddenly, tapping his brothers as he did. "Ah, brothers…?"

"What's up?"

"Look."

At the entrance of the alley was a entire horde of Aliens. Teeth, claws, and tails glistening in the darkness, they were making a mad dash for the Turtles. Skittering over the ground, the walls, and the catwalks of the surrounding two buildings, they were only seconds away.

Mike's eyes widened with horror at the sight. "Oh shit!"

Giving it all they had, the Turtles started running into the alley as fast as they could.

All except Raphael.

"They gave us these guns for a _reason,_ dumbasses." Almost casually, Raph raised his plasma caster to the horde and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, then a third time. Nothing happened.

"Hooo_-_boy…" Panicking, he threw the gun aside and tried to catch up to his brothers.

"I tried to use mine, too," Leo shouted behind him. "Blanque must have had his men give us blank guns on purpose."

Raphael grimaced. "Jee, you think?"

Mike gave a frown. "But… why?"

"That rotten bastard…"

An ear-piercing blast rang through the air, followed by one of the Aliens' elephant-like squeals. Raphael peered over his shoulder just in time to see one of the charging Aliens' heads explode.

"Mine works." The smoke from Don's massive cannon-morphed arm trailed behind him as he continued running.

They rounded the corner at the back of the alley, dashing around an Earth-like dumpster. They hadn't the faintest idea where they were going but they had no choice but to continue running.

"Guys, it's a _sewer!"_ Donatello shouted.

The others gasped as they realized Don was right. What could only be an open manhole was only feet before them, the cover just beside it.

"Jump for it!"

"Sweet home Alabama! Whoo-ee!"

Not even needing to be told, they did so, the advancing Aliens' claws only inches away from their shells behind them.

They quickly found the manhole into which they jumped was not a typical Earth sewer. At first it felt like they were going down a spiraling waterslide, then it felt like they were being drawn into a vacuum cleaner.

Not a normal vacuum cleaner, no—a vacuum cleaner that sucked them in with increasing air pressure, flushing them through a forking series of pipes and wind tunnels. Early on Leonardo bellowed to the others to hold hands and stay together, which was a virtually impossible task with the building pressure and velocity nearly ripping them apart. What was worse, as their speed increased, they were becoming unable to breathe, the very breath sucked from their lungs. When Raphael passed out, Leo held on. Somehow they managed to stay together for some three minutes, but then Michaelangelo's body got slammed against the rim of a new wind tunnel they were being blown into, wrenching his grasp from Don and blowing him into the tunnel opposite it while his brothers continued on.

Mike let out a frantic cry before he was beyond hearing.

* * *

_"Oooh..."_

Leonardo shook the cobwebs out of his head, blinking fast as his vision blurred back into clarity. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but his intuition told him it had been a good long while.

The heat again, the humidity... just like in the bar. Looking around, he found himself imbedded in a wall of the same organ-like fleshy material he'd seen in the Spaceport Jockeybar. Beside him were his brothers, still asleep for the time being.

Raising his head, Leo saw the single most hideous, monstrous creature he'd seen in his life. A gigantic Alien perched upon a white, winding sac, large organic tendrils holding the bulk of its mass up and in place. Its head was three times as large as the other Aliens' he'd seen, and had curved ridges to it that formed a cranium that almost resembled a flat crown. His stomach turned as he watched one of the pod-like eggs being regurgitated from the winding sac, laid next to the handful of others beside the gigantic Alien.

If he had to pick a name for the creature before him, Leonardo would have indeed called it an Alien Queen.


	5. Chapter 4 : The Killing Game

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Four  
THE KILLING GAME**

"Yo, get off me, man."

Raphael didn't know that he was actually talking, only that he felt someone shaking him or trying to get him up. He didn't like it. He was half-asleep, and comfortably so. Wherever he and the guys had decided to bed down for the night sure was cozy. Raphael felt completely embedded in the warm ooziness that soothed his whole body, almost like he'd fallen asleep soaking in a jacuzzi.

But the noise and commotion continued to stir him, threatening to wrest him from his peaceful slumber.

Able to sleep through no more, Raphael jolted awake. Leonardo was smacking his face left and right with his hand while Don was busy with his cybernetic arm. The arm was currently morphed into a small buzzsaw.

An active one.

"What the fuck—_gaahhh!"_ Raphael tried to back away, but found he could move not an inch. He tried wriggling, but it was to no avail. It wasn't until he looked down that he found out why.

He was glued to the wall. Glued to it with the same Alien organic honeycombing the creatures had used to turn the Spaceport Jockeybar into a hive.

_"Shhh._ Relax, Raph," Leo said. "We're gonna get you out of here." Donatello's buzzsaw began cutting away then, slicing a diagonal line to pre-programmed precision along the sticky organic material that bound Raph.

Raphael peered over each shoulder. "Where's Mike?"

"I don't know. We were separated. But right now… we have problems of our own."

As Leo and Don helped Raph slide out of his encasement, Leo silently pointed a finger to the far side of the chamber.

The biggest, most nightmarish creature imaginable to him sat perched there. Raph could hear it breathing in hissing, rhythmic bursts.

"Don and I think it may be the mother Alien," Leo offered.

Raph winced, daring not to take his eyes off the gigantic, spidery creature. "What, a _queen?"_

"That's what I'm thinking."

"Then these Alien things… they're really like insects?"

"Looks like Blanque was telling us the truth about them. Everything we've seen really does seems to indicate a typical queen-drone matriarchy, with the Queen controlling and maintaining the 'hive mind,' the mental link," Don explained. "In most insect species like ants and bees, the queen isn't as intellectually adept as her drones, but in this case…"

"What it all comes down to is that you're saying this skanky-ass mother bitch is the leader." Raph grunted, then nudged Don in the shoulder, nodding at the Queen. "Well then, you know what to do, buddy."

Don took his meaning. A moment later his buzzsaw-morphed arm had changed back into the default shape of a hefty arm cannon. He raised it, aimed its impressive twin barrels at the distant Queen's crown-like head. He hesitated, looking back to his brothers. "For all we know, this Alien isn't the only queen. There could be several other hives, each with an egg-laying queen of its own, all over the entire pl—"

"Shut up and _shoot!"_

Don sighed, then began his grim task.

The rapid fire barrage tore into the top of the Queen's monstrous head, throwing chunks of black Alien flesh and releasing its acidic blood. The Queen was wide awake now. Oblivious to the fact that half of her head had been blown off, she snaked forward, shrieking with animal rage as she wrenched her body's hindquarters. Wrenching and wrenching, finally she tore herself free of her egg sac, allowing her to freely lunge out at the Turtles. Don shifted his aim, peppering the Queen's mass with as much of his cyborg firepower as he could dish out.

Only meters away from the Turtles, the Queen finally relented. Graceful no longer, she tumbled backward into the sizzling puddle of her blood and blasted pieces of black flesh. Her great fallen body heaved several times, twitching violently, as if unable to accept its own death. But the reality of its fate finally caught up to it and it went still, sinking a few inches into the melting floor.

"That wasn't so hard," Don said. It wasn't often that he got cocky, but this time he felt he had every right to be.

"Shit!" Leo gasped.

Through the dark oval openings in the honeycombed walls came a flood of Aliens.

They had known what had transpired before they even entered. Their mother had been killed; the hive mind had been severed. And before them now... her _murderers._ The drones and warriors were disoriented, their telepathic link in a state of madness and disorder. In the days ahead there would be chaos, anarchy. The drones would fight it out with each other, each in a battle to determine which one of them had the right to to ascend and metamorphosize into queenhood.

But right here, right now, the gathering of Aliens were united under one clear, unmistakable purpose:

_Avenge the Queen!_

Donatello instinctively laid out a line of suppressing fire, pumping out a continuous, rapid-fire stream. While Don covered them, Raph and Leo drew the shuriken throwing stars they had tucked under their belts, throwing them into the mob of Aliens and aiming for the neck. The thunderous _brakka-brakka _booming of Don's arm cannon going off and the muffled elephant shrieks of the falling Aliens were all that could be heard. Blood was flying and limbs were blowing off as the bodies began piling up.

Though Don had a seemingly unlimited supply of ammunition, his brothers did not. Raph's sai were only good for short-range fighting, which simply wasn't an option, and Leo's remaining katana was only good for one swing before the Aliens' acid would eat through it, and probably half of his arm with it. Exchanging a look of panic, the two started sifting through the mucus-layered honeycomb of the wall, pushing aside the chesbursted corpses of Peblak citizens that got in their way.

"I found one!" Leo shouted.

Raphael couldn't hear him above the shooting, but saw a rifle of some kind in his hand. Weapons of the dead. Kneeling as he continued to search for a firearm of his own, Raph paid attention to Don's cry of _"Look out!"_

More on reflex than sense, Raph turned. A drone had slipped by Don and was bounding toward him, tail whipping, claws beared, and both sets of jaws exposed. Acting on pure ninjitsu training, Raph had both sai drawn and ready. Vaulting toward the oncoming Alien, he made two swift crisscrossing motions with his weapons in mid-flight, then landed directly beside the creature with poised precision.

Blood was spurting freely from the two deep gashes in its neck. Uttering its shrill elephant wail, the Alien shook its banana-shaped head side to side, then fell face-first into the floor.

"Nice work!" Leo said, looking over to him between laser salvos.

"Yeah, yeah." Raphael heaved his two melting sai aside, then went back to searching for a weapon. If Leo had found a dead Peblak officer with a laser rifle, there could be more. After almost a minute of digging through the membranous webbing, Raph's hand skimmed over metal. Shaking it clear, he tore it out and was opening fire on the Alien horde not a second later.

The stench of sulfur building and the scent of Alien acid becoming stronger, the three Turtles made their vigilant stand. Don kept the Aliens' rush under control, while Leo and Raph picked off any of them that managed to get too close for comfort.

Just as it seemed there would be no end to the Alien horde, it stopped.

A lone, final drone skittered out of one of the wall openings, making a feeble attempt to charge the Turtles. A single blast from Leo's rifle blew its shattered body across the chamber, splattering the bold creature against the wall.

The Turtles stood poised, waiting and expecting a second wave of Aliens that could arrive at any given moment. After two minutes of waiting, they seemed reasonably certain one wasn't coming.

"We need to find Mike, you guys," Raphael spoke, laying his laser rifle over his shoulder. "Who knows _what_ could have happened to him while we were fending off these bugs?"

"Damn…" Fear crept into Leo's eyes, bringing him out of his adrenaline trance and filling him with brotherly worry. "He's right."

* * *

"I see him!"

There he was, right where Don's thermal scanner had led them in the adjacent chamber. Just as Don, Leo, and Raph had been, Mike was cocooned to the far wall. Thankfully, he seemed unscathed.

While Don went to work cutting him out of place, Leo's eyes wandered about the chamber. It wasn't so different from the one they had just come from, but it was darker, more dank, and the floor seemed to radiate warmth. Scattered all about the chamber were numerous clusters of the pod-like Alien eggs, placed in random locations.

"There we go!"

"Thanks," Michaelangelo uttered, prying himself out of the opening Don cut. He said nothing further as he stood away from the wall. He looked pale, ready to keel over at any moment. He nearly tripped over something as he began to walk away.

"You all right, dude?" Raphael asked. "You look like shit."

Mike blinked, then wiped some of the half-crustified phlegm-like liquid from his face. "I-I dunno, man," he rasped. He took another step, then fell to his knees, clutching the ends of the front of his shell. He moaned, then screamed with pain. He rolled onto his side, then his back, kicking and flailing frantically.

Leonardo tried to hold his writhing brother still. "What's wrong? What's wrong?"

"I-I-I don't _know!" _he yelled. "It _hurts!_ Jesus god, it hurts so _much!"_

Leo and Don noticed for the first time what it was that Mike had tripped over.

A dead Alien facehugger.

"My _god..."_ Leo stared back at his twisting brother. "He's... he's got one of those _things_ inside of him."

It was all the Turtles could do to look helplessly at one another.


	6. Chapter 5 : Reptilian Genesis

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Five  
REPTILIAN GENESIS**

Donatello's eyes followed the drop of sweat that fell from his brow.

He was frightened for his brother's life, afraid that he would be too late, and afraid that at the end of the day there was nothing that could be done. Still, he continued working.

He yelled to Leonardo and Raphael, "Hold him down!"

They obliged, relieved that they could be of some help to Mike.

Don examined his buzzsaw-morphed arm. It was too damn big, too damn rugged. He concentrated as hard as he could, straining his imagination as he tried to send his cyborg symbiote the image of a surgical-style cutter. Looking down again, he saw a smaller, more refined version of the buzzsaw.

It would have to do.

Don started the surgical cutter with the same impulse a person would move a finger with, then lowered it with hair precision to his convulsing brother.

The Alien inside him had most likely already eaten through the larynx tissue and was likely busy on one of his lungs. The only thing that was stopping that Alien from bloodily erupting from Mike's chest was the front of his shell.

He didn't want to think about that now. Don concentrated at the task at hand, moving his cutter directly on the vertical center fold of Mike's frontal shell, just below the top edge. As Mike screamed out in the most extreme agony, Don began cutting down the fold. Deep, but perfectly centered. A ruptured artery and it would be over. He was no surgeon, and his medical knowledge was limited to episodes of _E.R._ and some Med School books from the 70s he'd browsed through from time to time... his cyborg enhancements and their own sub-programming would just have to compensate for it. They would have to.

Reaching a point two inches above Mike's belt, Don's work was done.

_Now,_ he thought, _Step Two._

Conjuring a quick mental image, Don's surgical cutter morphed into triple-jointed mechanical/surgical forceps. To his naked eye it looked more like a salad utensil. Hoping against hope, Donatello prayed it would suffice for his task.

As the watching Turtles held their breath and clenched their jaws, Don pushed on one side of Mike's shell, opening and slightly spreading the incision he had made in the center. In a quick motion, Don's forceps disappeared into the incision, clamped, then slipped out.

"Oh my..."

On its end, bathed in Michaelangelo's blood, was a birthing Alien. A chestburster that had not been given the chance to chestburst. It was snake-like, like the one they had seen chestburst in the Jockeybar, but what Don had drawn from Michaelangelo appeared different somehow. Bloated, warped. Donatello breathed a sigh of relief for his success even as he peered at the writhing creature in his forceps' grasp.

The creature saw its chance.

With a squirm, the Alien wriggled free of the forceps, hitting the floor with a wet thud and slithering off into one of the many knotholes in the honeycombed wall.

A stream of laser pulses sprayed across the wall a moment later.

Too late.

"God damn it!" Raphael scorned, lowering his rifle. "It got away..."

Don watched it disappear, cursing himself for letting his guard down. As he looked at Mike, no longer screaming, he knew it was a worthwhile trade-off.

Morphing his arm into a high-intensity epidermis bonding laser, something the cyborg suit evidently already had programmed into it, he wasted no time turning it on Mike's bleeding incision. Moving it to each end of the cut in steady motions, the walls of the laceration began to close and bond. When he was done, only a thin brown line of scar-tissue remained on the shell fold.

As Don wiped the sweat from his brow, Leo laid a hand on Don's shoulder and squeezed. "You did good."

Don nodded and sighed, still staring at Mike. He had fallen asleep, seemingly resting comfortably now.

"First we rest, my brothers," Leo spoke. "Then we continue."

* * *

Michaelangelo tried to keep up with his brothers, but it was difficult. After only short paces he would seem drop-dead exhausted, and had to catch his breath. It hurt like hell to breathe, too. Don had done as good a job as any doctor would have, but the lack of painkillers in Alien hives was something of a pain in the ass.

"Ya_hoo!" _Raphael called from above, looking down from the hexagonal D'hoonib manhole opening. "Daylight! We're back on the streets!"

Neither Mike nor any of the others were exactly overjoyed by that announcement, but the idea of leaving the stuffy, rancid stench atmosphere of the underground Alien hive was a welcome thought.

As they reached the surface, they found the streets to be uncomfortably quiet. Deathly quiet.

Great buildings lay in ruin all about—that was to be expected—but not a sound was to be heard. No scratching, no stirring, no pitter patter of little feet.

That was, until four Predators shed their invisibility cloaking devices directly in front of Raphael.

**"What're you lookin' at, fuckface?"** the first Predator spoke. Its booming voice was laden with rough mechanical overtones, coming off as sounding electronically amplified. Eerily, the creature had just mimicked the exact words Raphael had spoken when the Turtles had seen their first Predator.

Raph's arm went instinctively to his laser rifle.

The first Predator raised a polearm-like weapon and pulled something at its side. With a painful grunt, Raph was blown across the sidewalk to smash into the halfway-crumbled wall of a unidentifiable building. He was pinned in place against the stone structure.

A net gun.

It was a powerful net, one with metallic fibers that had not only firmly embedded its screw-like hooks in the wall, but the net itself into Raphael's skin. Blood ran from every part of his exposed torso in grid-like lacerations. He screamed out and struggled futilely against his bonds, the net drilling deeper into his skin as its hooks drilled deeper into the wall. While his brothers tended to the Predators, Raph's hand fought against his bonds to reach his belt where he had kept a shuriken in reserve... if only he could just reach it...

Leonardo knew the rules.

In a flash, he had his remaining katana out and already sweeping forth for the killing blow.

The Predator that had shot Raph seemed genuinely surprised by the sudden assault, but was able to start leaping away as he saw the katana bearing down on him.

Not fast enough.

Leo's katana came down square on the dodging Predator's shoulder-mounted laser, slicing through it and continuing down through the creature's muscular left shoulder. The next instant, the whole severed arm was lying on the cement, glowing green blood squirting from the dismembered creature. Leo didn't waste a second, seizing the opportunity to rush over to a bloodied Raphael, freeing his brother with a swipe of his sword.

"Th-thanks, Leo," Raphael sputtered from the ground, in clear anguish.

"You sit this one out, Raphael," he boomed at his brother.

Raphael opened his mouth as if to argue the point, but instead fell back on his shell.

The Predator he had maimed uttered no cry of pain. Instead, it collected itself and drew a long shaft from its back. It clicked something, then ridged, dual-blades jutted from the ends of the weapon. It held its spear in hand as it spoke to Leo, mimicking their earlier words again this time with, **"We're back on the streets!"**

Leo looked to the Predators, then turned a wary glance to Mike and Don. "Death before dishonor, my brothers."

Even as he still walked racked with pain, Mike drew his nunchaku and went at the second and third Predators. Don morphed his arm cannon into a metallic staff and joined him.

The battle began, the two parties engaging in a dance of death. There was struggle, and there was bloodshed. In the end, only one side prevailed.

Worn and bloodied from the intense battle, the Turtles barely noticed the rumbling street. When the rumbling became a bone-jarring quake, they could no longer ignore it.

The street suddenly erupted outward, chunks of concrete folded and thrown over as a humongous figure wrenched itself out of the hole it had created.

A gigantic Alien. Standing at a monstrous twenty feet as it drew itself up, it was clearly larger than a queen, but it owed more physically to the appearance of drones and warriors. Its skin was black like the others, but with hints and patches of dark green about it. Its arms, legs, and tail were thick and rippled with ripcord muscles that could be seen flexing under its skin as it moved. Its forelegs arched out of its back like spiders legs, its back legs set on enormous haunches, thick and powerful. There were menacing-looking pincers on each side of the head, retracted at the moment. The head was long, eyeless, like the others, but along its dark expanse was red veins, coming out of its skin and streaming like thick crimson hairs to its back. The back itself was comprised entirely of a single spiked, ribbed, and tubed hump, giving a mock impression of a disproportioned carapace shell. Owing more to drones and warriors than a queen, the Turtles realized, but owing more to something else as well.

Turtles.

The Alien they now faced was Michaelangelo's offspring.


	7. Chapter 6 : Endgame

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Six  
ENDGAME**

_Everything is going just as planned. Hell, who am I kidding? Better... actually._

General Blanque straightened his navy blue uniform tunic a bit, then crossed his arms in a bit of a showing of self-satisfaction. He stood at his display dais, watching the momentous scene play itself out on the holoprojection before him.

The four Turtles, already having dealt with an equal number of the _yautja_, now found themselves pitted against an Alien like no other.

"Marvelous. Simply marvelous."

It was common knowledge that Aliens took certain physical and genetic traits of their hosts post-chestbursting. Aliens that gestated within canines, for example, took on a more canine or quadriped physique and attitude as they matured. With the extensive number of species on D'hoonib, the Alien infestation had already resulted in varying breeds of Aliens. The Alien that had birthed from one of the Turtles, however, had taken far more than just basic reptilian turtle traits.

It had the benefit of the Utrom mutagen within the Turtles' bloodstream—the mutagen that had mutated and hyperevolved them from ordinary pet shop turtles to sentient, humanoid beings. That was the key. Adamant skin,—even more so than the garden variety of Aliens—enormous size, and intelligence far above that of even the most advanced, mature Alien Queen. If given enough time, it could even become truly sentient itself.

In its very essence, an Alien King.

It was beautiful.

It was glorious.

It would bring about absolute victory to the Federat, and glory to the General. Sweet, sweet glory. The Triceraton Empire and all of the enemies of the Federat would crumble at his feet when he would unleash his new weapon against them in short order.

Blanque had seen to things himself. He'd given the Turtles blank Plasma Casters, then had his men send the Turtles on their way directly in the Alien hive's path. There was no guarantee it would work, but it was certainly worth it to him to try. The Aliens and "Predators" themselves were no threat. Missile installations about D'hoonib had found and targeted the cloaked Predator spacecraft, and thermonuclear/anti-matter warheads were ready to reduce the mostly-evacuated ruins of Peblak City and the festering Alien hive within it to atoms. A thumbs-up from Blanque and D'hoonib's invasion would be brought to an abrupt end.

But it could wait. He had heard it said that the Predator race held the key to immortality in their blood, and he now had four Predator corpses to study. It was by chance that the Predators had selected D'hoonib for their ritual Alien hunt, and Blanque did intend to make the most of the situation. The new breed of Aliens he had managed to have bred from the Turtles—the Alien King—had unbelievable military potential. A few cell scrapings and he could clone an army of Alien Kings. If bred and grown under the right conditions, it was an army that could be unleashed against the enemies of the Human Federation. It was the breakthrough they had been waiting for. Blanque could finally have the means he needed to take the rest of the foolish Utroms' technology by force, annex the Ghouli, or even destroy the damned Triceraton "Republic" and put an end to a veritable lifetime of war.

All of it would happen. General Jordan Blanque would make sure of it.

Blanque's head whipped around as he heard a rustle behind him. It had seemed to come from the lobby.

"Jeffries?" he called. There was no answer. "Cavanaugh?"

_What was going on?_

Blanque rushed to his desk and hit a button by his lamp. "Jeffries! _Report!" _Again, no answer. _"Damn you, report!"_

For a fleeting moment, a horrifying possibility came across Blanque. It passed. The Alien infestation couldn't possibly have reached Peblak Bay—there was practically a whole sea separating them from the mainland and Peblak City. Even granting the possibility that the Aliens _could_ swim, it just wasn't feasible.

Having quickly rationalized that disturbing thought, Blanque relaxed his guard. Calmly, Blanque began to make his way to the door. Laid his hand on the palm-recognition opening mechanism. Opened the door.

Six-fingered hands abruptly closed around his body as powerful black arms yanked him forward.

* * *

The Alien opened its mouth and let out a long, piercing scream. Not of pain, or hurt of any kind, but of some kind of dreadful awakening. It seemed to study its joints as it bent its limbs back and forth, observing its goliath-sized body.

Then, all at once, it launched itself forward.

The Turtles, their weapons still coated with the phosphorescent green blood of the Predators, prepared for battle.

With the ease of brushing aside an insect, the Alien knocked three of the Turtles aside in one mighty swipe of its thick forearm. But the Alien didn't attack. Instead, it clomped toward the Turtle it had left standing, Michaelangelo.

Mike froze, glancing futilely down at his nunchuks, then at the monstrous abomination that was peering down at him. He dropped his nunchuks.

"You..." Mike spoke, his voice choking. He pointed a quivering finger at the creature. "You... you came from me..."

The Alien seemed to consider that. Its bulbous, elongated head cocked to the side, then back. Its slime-laden lips curled back as its teeth revealed themselves, its pincers folding along the sides of its head. It opened its jaw, a second one threatening to burst out.

A rough wheeze escaped its mouth. Then, out of the impossibility, the Alien spoke. Its voice was wet, unnatural, but the words it spoke were unmistakable, **"I... I... came from... you..."**

"Yeah!" Mike laughed. His fear subsided. "Guess that makes me... your father."

**"Father..."**

"Yeah. You know, li—"

Leonardo made his move. Leaping with a cheetah's agility onto the creature's back, he drove his remaining katana sword firmly down into the Alien's head. Shrieking and screaming, it hurled Leo off and reached frustratingly at the sword that had been plunged all the way to the hilt into its skull.

Donatello fired his arm cannon at the flailing Alien. Then he fired again.

_"No!"_

Mike slapped Don's gun down, causing him to accidentally fire a barrage dangerously close to Raph's feet.

"No, damn it!"

Don shrugged Mike off. "But that _thing..._ it was going to—"

"It wasn't like the others! It didn't mean us any harm. It knew I was its... father... it knew that..."

Leo, more than worn after the battles of the day, settled a sympathetic gaze on his brother. "Mike... I'm sorry. There was just no other way."

The air before the Alien corpse wavered, then steadied, as a group of twelve Predators decloaked and showed themselves. The masked hunters stood tall, their gaze shifting between the corpses of the fallen Predators, the corpse of the Alien, and the Turtles. Each of the hunters bore the advanced weaponry of the savage race.

The Turtles did what they could to prepare for another battle. If there was to be a fight now, they would not cower from it. Not even if it meant certain defeat.

A Predator stepped away from the others. This one had longer dreadlocks than the others, wore a worn floor-length cape, and was decorated with far more elaborate armor.

"The chief warrior," Raphael spoke in a low tone of voice. "Like Blanque told us."

The lead Predator walked forward, meeting the Turtles after a few strides.

It stopped before Leo. Despite the two-feet height difference between the two warriors, the regal Predator looked him in the eye. Just as it seemed it would lash out at him, the Predator instead reached up and removed something from just behind its smooth metal mask, then something else. As a couple of tiny tubes began hissing as a bit of pressurized air was released, the Predator slowly removed its mask with both hands.

Raph's face contorted as he saw the Predator's face. "You're one... ugly... motherf—"

"Don't say it, Raph," Donatello quickly cut his brother off, shaking his head.

The Predator's face had a broad forehead, tiny, almost beady eyes silhouetted by four large mandibles. Trusting that if the Predator was going to attack it would have done so by that point, Leonardo tipped his head at the Predator, not taking his eyes off of him.

The caped Predator returned the gesture. Moving slowly, perhaps so as not to alarm Leonardo or his brothers, he reached within its cape and began withdrawing something.

It was sword. A long, meticulous-looking Predator sword. Double-edged, ridged near the base, and crafted of a glistening alloy likely known only to the Predators themselves.

With both hands, the Predator offered the ornate weapon to Leonardo and bowed.

At a loss for words, Leo clenched his fists as he hesitated. Then he understood. He understood the Predators, and he understood the gesture the Predator was now making.

_Bushido;_ the unspoken way of the warrior. Leo, above all three of his brothers, had dedicated himself to following this way. The Predators, alien though they were, followed their own interpretation of _bushido,_ but the essence remained intact.

The universal code of the warrior.

Leonardo accepted the sword.

The Predator rose, held Leo's gaze a moment, then returned to the others. With a wave of his arm the twelve Predators re-engaged their personal cloaks, becoming only transparent blurs in the D'hoonib night air.

Raphael was the first to speak after the Predators had taken their leave of them. "All right, now what do we do?"

Leo was still silent as he stared at the Predator's gift. He sheathed it under his belt and looked back to his brothers. "We go home," he answered plainly.

"But... how? Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we ain't got no Transmat devices to beam us back to Earth, now do we? Unless you suppose Blanque is just going to generously send us back with his."

Raphael had a point, but Leo refused to let that problem get to him. "We need to get to a transmitter. If we can just find some way to get us in contact with the Utroms, I'm sure they would send us."

"Yeah," Mike said. He was still looking at the body of the Alien. It had been his child, in an odd sense. Yet it was an odd sense he could not ignore. "I guess."

Leonardo went to his brother's side. He saw his hurt, and not just the physical part of it. "Before anything," he decided, "we rest."

The Turtles made their way through the wasteland of Peblak then, off in search of a place to rest for the time being. Worn from their battles, not a single one of them paid any notice to the rising, dripping figure behind them.


	8. Chapter 7 : Ashes to Ashes

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Seven  
ASHES TO ASHES**

Raphael hopped off the railing of the Peblakian rooftop the Turtles had spent the last six hours resting on and waved his arms. "Hot damn, we're saved!"

Leonardo stirred at Mike's premature announcement. Yet, premature though it was, their salvation appeared to indeed be fast approaching them.

It was a large space-faring vessel that was hovering above them, unusually large for the typical aircars and trucks that flew D'hoonib's air traffic lanes. Bursts of pressurized carbon were visible while it veered around on its axis, cutting through the thick reddish smog the city's surface was laden with. As the two strips of yellow landing lights on the vessel's underside marked its descent, the dumpster-sized hover turbines could be seen, each one mounted vertically at each of the vessel's four corners.

Raphael seemed sure it was coming to their aid, but Leo was not quite as presumptuous. It could be Blanque's men, looking to eliminate the Turtles now that they have outlived their usefulness. It was not a possibility he liked to consider, but it could be one of the Predators' vessels—perhaps the alien hunters' honor was not yet satisfied?

"Would you relax, Leo? It's not opening fire on us, is it?"

"No, but—"

"Look, fearless leader, we can just chill on the rooftops waiting for some Transmat ray to beam us home all we want... but that's not going to get us any closer to finding a way back."

Leo nodded, surrendering the argument to his brother. "Let's just keep on our toes."

No one could dispute that recommendation.

As the vessel lowered to within five feet of the edge of the railing, the Turtles cautiously neared it.

"Come on, Mikey, easy does it." Carefully, Donatello helped his brother up on the Styrofoam-like mattress he'd rounded up. He'd done his best to make Mike comfortable, but there would be no quick recovery for the pain he felt that was both physical and mental.

The four Turtles froze as an audible spray of pressurized air escaped the ventral side of the vessel. A sidedoor unlatched and swung open vertically, a ramp then telescoping downward.

It was neither another Predator or a Human Federation soldier that appeared at the open doorway of the vessel.

It was the Fugitoid.

The waist-high droid gave a mock-salute to the Turtles with its mechanical arm. "Professor Honeycutt, at your service!"

"Fugitoid! Hell yeah!" Mike shoved his pain aside just long enough to shout out.

"In the flesh! Well, not anymore, I suppose. This sorry excuse for a droid my mind is stuck in is still my prison, even after all these years." The perky, wide-eyed droid shook his head. "But enough about me. You guys had yourselves a little adventure here, didn't you? I picked up your signals when General Blanque Transmatted you over here and I've been monitoring you guys ever since from low orbit. You're just lucky I was swinging by these parts for fueling, otherwise your adventure might have been cut short."

"Adventure?" Leo asked grimly. "I suppose we did have one. But we still couldn't save D'hoonib."

Fugitoid motioned the Turtles to enter. Hesitantly, they began to ascend the ramp to the hovering vessel. "You did all you could and then some. Fighting the _yautja_ on their own terms, infiltrating an Alien hive, taking out a queen, Blanque's 'Alien King,' and quite nearly exterminating the whole nest is no easy task, I can assure you." He started, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, Blanque is dead, by the way."

"He is?"

"I heard Peblak Bay was overrun by the Aliens just a few hours ago when I was keeping track of the radio traffic."

Raphael grunted. "Look at me, I'm cryin' my ass off over here."

"Since when do you have your own spaceship?" Don asked, paying extra close attention to the high-tech interior of the craft as the doorway slid to a close behind the Turtles.

"Parting gift from the Utroms. They gave me one of their transports when I told them it was time for me to leave. I call her the _Sojourner_—go figure." Fugitoid moved behind the Turtles and began herding them forward to the cockpit. "Sorry, you guys, but we really do have to make tracks here. Get out while the getting's good."

"Are we in a rush?"

Fugitoid gave Leo a strange look, then led them to their seats near the navigation controls. Nearly the entire cityscape of Peblak was visible through the frontal viewports. "Let's just say we don't want to stick around for what happens next."

Trusting their old friend, the Turtles took their seats and let him man the controls.

There was a sudden jolt the instant the vessel went into high speed before the acceleration dampers kicked in. The view of Peblak veered up to the crimson sky as it shot for the stars. Even with the dampening on, the many Gs the _Sojourner_ was soon pulling could be felt to some degree.

A flash of piercing light blinded the Turtles. A second flash just as brilliant followed, and then a third. When a minute elapsed and no more flashes were seen, all of them uncovered their eyes, save for Don, whose eyes could take any amount of punishment. They could be ripped from his skull and it would be only a minor task for him to regenerate new ones.

Fugitoid solemnly looked back at his passengers, then nodded to the rear viewport at the aft end of the vessel. "Look if you must."

One by one the Turtles went to the rear of the ship. Even at their increasing altitude, it took only a glance to know the horrible truth.

Peblak was no more.

Enormous, blossoming mushroom clouds the size of four city blocks apiece were still dissipating, every one joining together to spell atomic annihilation for millions in the surrounding regions, if not billions. Where there was once the megalopolis of construction and skyscrapers was now smoke, cinders, and craters that looked as smooth as glass.

It was as if, just then, the D'hoonib capital had been carved off the face of the planet.

"With Blanque dead, it was one of his subordinates that gave the order for Operation Clean Sweep," Fugitoid explained. The Turtles, even Raphael, were too astonished to reply. "It was their last option."

"Millions dead... just like that..." Leo rasped, unable to believe it.

"And millions more to come from the radioactive fallout," Donatello said. "Nuclear winter. Only thermonukes could do that kind of widespread destruction. Thermonukes or _worse."_

"Millions dead..." Leo repeated himself. "How can they do that to their own people?"

"The Alien threat had to be dealt with, to say nothing of the _yautja._ Their seed had already manifested—if allowed to continue the entire planet would be forfeit, to say nothing of the risk of spreading it elsewhere."

Leo dipped his head. "Then we have truly failed."

"Christ, Leo, you're kidding yourself if you think we did anything less than all we could for that hell hole!" snapped Raphael. "We're just lucky we got off that rock with the shells on our backs. Damn lucky if you ask me."

"I'm not asking you," Leo retorted.

"Please listen to your brother, Leonardo," Fugitoid coaxed.

Leo left the others and went back to his seat, not saying a word. Burying his head in his hands, he spoke, barely audibly, "Just take us home."

Fugitoid and the other Turtles all turned hopelessly to Leo. It was going to be a long trip.

* * *

Donatello was still held in awe long after his brothers had gotten over it. "Fascinating," he said for the fourth time.

Impossibly, the all-too familiar sphere of Earth now filled the viewport. After only a few minutes of preparation and calculations, in a fraction of a second, the _Sojourner_ had lanced across half the galaxy.

"Sorry, the Utroms didn't give me a working Transmat Device," Fugitoid apologized, looking up from the navigation control board. "Or _any_ Transmat Device, for that matter, much to my disappointment. I may have designed Transmat Devices, but when it comes to building them, I do need materials. I had to use the _Sojourner_'s Space-Folding Drive to get you to this region of the Milky Way so I can now drop you guys off manually in... what was that place again?"

"New York."

"Oh, yes, New York." Fugitoid nodded, then keyed something into the board. "Just let me activate stealth mode so as not to alarm whatever air force your planet has at its disposal. There we go. Hang on..."

The deck tiles began to shudder as the _Sojourner_ blew down through the upper atmosphere of Earth. They were well past critical velocity, and were going faster by the moment.

They were coming up on the East Coast, and they were coming up on it fast.

The Turtles tensed when the vessel passed through a blanket of clouds. It came out directly over eastern New York City, and George Washington Bridge was in plain sight. It was late night, which was disorienting for the Turtles, as on D'hoonib less than an hour ago, it had been early afternoon.

"I'm thinking I'll let you four out on one of the rooftops in Manhattan. Is that all right?"

"Anywhere in the Big Apple in fine with us," Raphael said.

Don remarked, half-humorously, "Beats walking."

After just a few more moments of skimming over the grand city that the Turtles called home, the _Sojourner_ began to slow to a gradual hovering halt over a squat five-story hotel in midtown Manhattan.

"This is your stop, guys. Ready to go?" The Turtles muttered an acknowledgement and Fugitoid opened the hatch, releasing the ramp that would take them to the hotel rooftop. "Damn, something fried my second landing light set. One of the hover turbines is compromised, too. Oh well, probably just minor damage from the Space-Folding jump surge." Fugitoid shrugged and looked back to his passengers. "It really was great to see you guys again. You going to be all right, Leo?"

"I will survive." Leo gave him a beaten look. "I give you our sincerest thanks. Your assistance has not only returned us home, but has saved our lives. We are in your debt."

Fugitoid waved a hand. "You're not in anybody's debt, Leo. We're _even_ now."

Leo smiled bitterly, then extended a hand to shake Fugitoid's. "You take care of yourself, Honeycutt."

They parted then, the Turtles saying their goodbyes and exiting down the ramp.

"Where to now?" Don asked as they headed for the fire escape. "Home?"

Somehow the idea of returning to the residence they had set up in the mausoleum vault of Westwood Cemetery did not appeal to any of them, at least at the moment. All four brothers did believe Splinter would be concerned about their well-being by this point but there would be a time for that.

"Nah," Raph replied, "let's go see if our pals are still up."

Much as they had missed the rising figure on D'hoonib a short time earlier, the Turtles similarly failed to notice the animal-like scratches gouged into the underside of the disappearing _Sojourner._

* * *

"Anybody home?"

Raphael's call into the living room of a spartan New York apartment was answered only by low groans from within the room.

A man stumbled out of the darkness, shaking the hair out of his face even as he tried to shake the sleep from his eyes. "Raph?" he called. The man seemed to be unsure whether he wanted to lash out or remain calm. He chose to simply stay on-guard. "Raph! Guys!"

"Case-man!" Raphael went ahead of the others, giving his friend a firm hug, accompanied by a clap on the back.

Casey Jones stood back then, taking a moment to look at the Turtles as the rest of them came into his apartment. "Jesus, Raph, you look like shit..."

Mike grunted at Raph, then turned back to Casey. "I think net boy over here got off easy."

Raph scratched at the scabbed grid-like cuts over his shoulder. "All right, Mr. Mom."

"Hell, where've you guys been?" Casey prodded. He nodded at the television set in the living room. Various issues of _TV Guide, Nintendo Power,_ and _Cosmopolitan_ lay strewn about the floor. "Day before yesterday you were sitting there playing video games with Shadow. I go to the kitchen to get us some brews, come back, and you guys are gone. Gone!"

"Long story."

Casey seemed to notice the Turtles' cuts, bruises, and scorch marks for the first time. "I'll bet! Why the hell didn't you invite me?"

"Um, Casey..."

"C'mon! I may be a dad now, but I can still bust heads every now and again."

A slender woman stepped out of the bedroom, fighting to throw on a long T-shirt as she walked into the room with a young girl holding her hand, a gray cat following close behind. The woman's unsteady gaze focused on the four visitors. "Guys—that you?"

"April, Shadow... Klunk!" Michaelangelo called. His discomfort seemed to fade wholly upon the sight of young Shadow and the cat that followed.

April let Shadow leave her and run to Mike, who was ready with open arms. "I heard you disappeared on us a while back. What happened?"

Everyone in the room looked to Leo, as if expecting that he alone held the answer.

"Might as well tell'em, you know," muttered Raph.

Leo took a deep breath. Pulling up a chair at the dining room table he prepared to recount the exploits of the past couple of days to an anxious April and Casey.


	9. Chapter 8 : Battleground: Earth

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**Chapter Eight  
BATTLEGROUND : EARTH**

"Wake up, Raph, you gotta see this!"

For the second time in as many days, Raphael found himself being rudely awakened. This time it was not his brothers looming over him that he saw, but Casey, sticking his face in Raph's as he prodded him with a finger. "I'm up, I'm up!" Raph exclaimed.

Getting to his feet, he saw Leo, Don, and Mike were already at the television set. Each stared attentively at the TV.

An attractive female reporter the Turtles had occasionally caught on the four o'clock news was standing on the sidewalk of a traffic-less street. Police squad cars consumed much of the view, but men in uniform could be seen going about their business. "—ce again, this is Nancy Newman reporting live from Madison Avenue, where four bodies have been discovered—the truly horrifying evidence of a massacre that forensics indicate transpired sometime late last night." The reporter walked over to one of the bodies in question. Though bodybagged, the effect of the visual was chilling. "The bodies found were killed by apparent explosives that were placed within their chest, then burst outward. If that is true, we are looking at a possible serial kil..." The reporter turned away as a policeman bent over to whisper something in her ear. She faced the camera again, looking even more lively. "This just in, two new bodies have been discovered. Sanitation workers went to work this afternoon to find two of their fellow workers slain in a fashion identical to the last four in a manhole to the immediate north. Apparently the killer or killers murdered the four victims discovered this morning, then fled to the sewers, where two more unsuspecting victims fell pr—"

Leonardo raised the remote and clicked the TV off.

"It's _them."_

Leo's words were met by grim silence from the others.

* * *

They had waited until nightfall before moving out, giving them only enough time to replenish their weapons and mentally prepare for the evening they had steeled themselves for. With Casey pulling up the rear and Donatello on point, his shoulder-mounted light providing the illumination, the Turtles had made their way into the sewer accessway in the lower level of April and Casey's apartment complex. After only a half hour of going about the central tunnels, they had stumbled upon a body.

The man was lying face-down in the sewer, red streaks of his blood streaming out in the flow of the drainage. Carefully, Casey nudged the body over on its back with the tip of his double-barreled, sawed off shotgun.

He turned back, his nose wrinkling under his American flag-like hockey mask as he noticed a blood-stained pin on the body's breast. "It's a cop," Casey sneered. "Don't tell me the 5-0 is down here..."

Below the shocked expression of the policeman, locked on his face in death, was the telltale sign of the Aliens' reproductive cycle: a fist-sized hole on the corpse's sternum, ribs protruding outward from which a newborn Alien had burst.

There could be no doubt anymore.

"Shit, it's the Aliens all right," Raph said, looking the chestbursted body over. The Turtles made their way down the sewer ladder behind him, jogging to catch up with him through the darkness of the tunnel ahead. "But if they're reproducing, doesn't that mean we're dealing with another queen?"

"It would have to be," Donatello agreed. "Even if Blanque was right about drones metamorphosizing into queens, a drone wouldn't have had nearly enough time. Strange that there aren't any eggs or dead facehuggers around, though."

Raph harrumphed. "What are you, Donny, some kinda know-all alien expert now?"

Don gave a grumble. "I just know what I heard, that's all."

Continuing into the tunnel, which seemed to be getting wider the deeper they went, Raph continued to prod Donatello, "Well, huh. How do you s'pose they got here?"

"Who knows, really?" piped Donatello with an emphatic shrug. "Blanque might have Transmatted over a batch as a farewell present to Earth, or..." something seemed to come over him that he hadn't considered, "... or maybe one of them hitched a ride with us on the _Sojourner._ Question is, just how many Aliens are we deal—"

"It is not important how they got here," Leonardo cut his brother off. "What is important is that they are here, and we must destroy them. Let us proceed."

The Turtles moved on, following the dispersed trail of chestbursted bodies cast about down the sewer—every one of them marking the birth of another Alien on Earth. Body by body, they came closer to their destination, whatever it may be.

To their surprise, no Alien drones ambushed them along the way. The Turtles jumped at every darkened corner, every hidden pipe, and every shadow they came across, but this fact remained true.

When they reached a spacious adjoining chamber with a moss-ridden sign unceremoniously labeled "To Sewage Treatment & Processing," the Turtles pressed on. The heavy methane stench and heat rose in intensity as they continued.

Two gunshots and a gut-wrenching scream just ahead made the Turtles' jog increase to a run.

Through the shadows, they saw the terrible scene unfold.

After withdrawing its bloodied second jaw from the skull of a dead policeman, a huge Alien then wrestled another policeman—this one alive—pressing the flailing woman to its chest under its powerful arms. Bringing its head back, pincers snapped forth and locked the woman's head in place. Then, opening both jaws, a supple pink tube shot forth into the woman's mouth and throat. After a pause, the tube was drawn back into the Alien's second jaw.

Then it noticed the fast approaching Turtles. As the Alien turned its head to face them, they realized that this was an Alien they knew.

It was the Alien King. The progeny of Michaelangelo.

**"Father,"** the mighty Alien thundered, retracting its pincers from the now-unconscious woman and letting her fall to the floor. It spoke once again in its wet, unnatural voice. This time, however, there was something more refined to it. **"You have come back to me."**

"Yikes!" yelped Casey, taken aback. "You didn't tell me these fucking bugs could talk!"

"Th-this can't be..." Mike rasped. "Leo, Don... you _killed_ it on D'hoonib."

And yet there it was, standing now at its full twenty feet height. In some places along its body the exoskeletal skin had fallen off, pulpy orange flesh showing through that seemed to be slowly regenerating while they watched. Likely it was the damage caused by Don's artillery onslaught in Peblak.

Mike's gaze traveled from the scar on his shell to the giant the five of them now faced. "As screwed up as it might sound, that thing... it's my son."

"We have to destroy it!" Leonardo spat, nearly out of anger. "You saw what happened on D'hoonib! Millions of lives were snuffed out just to rid the planet of them—_millions of lives,_ Michaelangelo!"

Mike raised a hand as if to protest. "Bu—"

"And what about people like Blanque? He was trying to _breed_ those things for military prowess. Peblak was a sacrifice he was willing to make to gain it. He and his kind are a dime a dozen on Earth." Leo's gaze went frigid. "I'm sure our friends in DARPA would love to get their hands on the Aliens."

With that remark, Mike lowered his head in defeat.

"For once, bro," Raphael said to Leo, "I couldn't agree with you more."

Casey cocked his shotgun and moved beside Leo, psyched. "Now you're talking, boys. It's clobberin' time!"

**"Father..."** the Alien spoke again to Mike, **"... I have spread the Family here, to your homeworld. It will thrive, as it did on D'hoonib and a hundred other worlds. My seed has already birthed enough to begin a hive. I will make you proud of me."**

Don's non-mechanical eye widened. "Then there is no queen! You can impregnate hosts yourself—no eggs or facehuggers!" He looked back down at the unconscious woman, realizing the full gravity of what the King had just done to her.

**"That is correct. I am the future of the Family."**

Mike took a nervous step forward. He winced at the towering creature, confused. "You're not like the others of your kind, you're intelligent—_sentient,_ now. Why are you doing this?"

The King tipped its misshapen head in a curious way, as if expressing an unfamiliar emotion. For all intents and purposes he was just a newborn, but his accelerated growth as an Alien coupled with the accelerated evolution wrought from Mike's mutagen was forcing him to cope with his reality faster than he could adequately process what was going on around him.

It coiled back on its haunches, paused a moment, then spoke hoarsely, **"It is because, Father... you have forsaken me!"**

His nerves unsettled on top of it, Mike had scarcely enough time to ready his nunchuks before the Alien King pounced upon him.

As if coordinated by the Alien King's attack, a horde of Alien drones poured into the room. From above, from beyond, from behind—they seemed to emerge from everywhere at once.

Leo drew the sword the Predator chief had bestowed him and held it high. At the top of his lungs he shouted the battle cry, _"For Splinter! For Earth!"_

"Zunga, zunga, muthafucker!" Casey yelled, unloading both barrels of his shotgun's payload into the gaping mouth of a leaping Alien drone to a fierce, almost shoulder-snapping recoil. Chambering and cocking it again he brought it to bear on a second Alien, grinning feverishly as he fired away once more.

Raphael rebounded himself off the sewer wall and spin-kicked another Alien across the jaw, raking one sai across the creature's smooth head while plunging the other as far as he could into its neck. A swipe from the drone's outstretched arm tagged him on the forearm. He weaved to the side, blocking the pain out as best he could. Both sai now melting and useless, Raph hastily drew a concealed tanto dagger from his side and buried it deep into his enemy's elongated cranium.

Taking a whip from a drone's tail, Leonardo rolled with the impact to stay in control. Feigning to one side, he came back around and brought his sword down in perfect alignment over the Alien's head. Sliced clean through the center to the waist, the creature split down the middle and collapsed in a hissing rush of acid blood.

Donatello poured chaingun firepower into the Alien horde with his arm cannon, mowing down the beasts two at a time. Of all the Turtles, he had it the easiest.

It was all Mike could do to bat at the Alien King with his nunchuks, pummeling it in desperation. He gave little fight as the King drew Mike to him, the Alien's pincers locking over his head. The King's mouth opened then, its second jaw ready to shoot out like a piston.

Leonardo pulled his sword from another Alien he had struck down and made a run at the King, leaping and diving gracefully forward. He came down sword-first, slashing off both the giant's right pincer and right arm from the elbow-down before landing. The creature immediately released Mike, backing away shortly afterward.

Leo went back to a proper battle stance, gripping his sword intently with both hands. The weapon was serving its purpose nicely, he noticed. The Predator alloy was resistant to the acid of the Aliens' blood.

**"I will not be beaten!"** the Alien King boomed throughout the vast chamber. It clutched its arm stump as it continued to back toward the primary collection vat of the sewage treatment center. **"I will not be destroyed! The Family must go on! I will spread it!"**

Leo flashed his sword once, twice, and a third time. The Alien King weaved to and fro, looking down to observe the gushing gashes that now crisscrossed his massive body.

A blast from Casey's shotgun blew off the side of the King's jaw and the other mandible pincer, forcing the creature back even further.

**"No! The... Family must... go on..."** The creature's inhuman voice was a gurgle now. Blood seeping from nearly every region of its body now, the King looked as if it were ready to collapse right there and then.

"Time to take out the shit." As Mike started to make a move to stop him, Raph drop-kicked the King over the rim. His limbs flailing as he went, the King plummeted unceremoniously into the fecal-reeking cesspool of the sewage treatment vat below.

The King splashed as it fought violently against the overwhelming vacuum current of the vat. It cried out with an outstretched hand, pleading to Mike, **"I came from you... Father... please..."**

The King's last reserve of strength going, his grip on the girders gave way and he slipped beyond into the whirling blades of the veritable sewage cyclotron. Passed through a series of blades and screening devices meant for the breaking down, filtering, and purifying of raw sewage the King disappeared from sight under the murky water. A moment later, clouds of yellow-green blood and chunks of black Alien flesh bubbled to the surface only to be sucked back down.

The final _brakka-brakka_ of Donatello's cybernetic arm cannon signaled the end of the Alien horde. The five regrouped and stood shell-to-shell before the steaming corpses of their fallen opponents, waiting, ready to deal with any other threats. None came.

"Honor... is satisfied," Leonardo spoke tersely, not facing the others. "The circle is complete."

Mutants; ninja; brothers.

The Turtles were all of those and more, but the "Aliens" and "Predators" had brought them together in a way that few beside Oroku Saki himself had in their earlier youth. They had been brought together as warriors.

Now it was time to go home.


	10. Epilogue

**"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"**

**EPILOGUE**

_"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat,  
and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy."_  
**- Sun Tzu **

The Leader nodded to the other yautja that gathered around the vidscreen of their ship, in orbit over the planet Earth now, that had displayed the Shelled Ones' final conflict with the Hard Meat. They left him then, going back to their daily regimen and training exercises.

The Hunt had gone well this time. On D'hoonib an entire group of yautja had been Blooded in Hunt with the Hard Meat. Regrettably, four of the already-Blooded yautja had been lost to the Shelled Ones, but their Final Hunt had been a meaningful one indeed. There was no disgrace, only great honor and fulfillment, in death by a worthy combatant.

Yes, the Shelled Ones.

The Leader had to admire the skill of the four Shelled Ones he had personally awarded one of the yautja's strongest blades. But then, he remembered, Earth had always proved itself to have a wealth of reputable warriors in the past. The oomans the yautja had challenged before on Earth were all worthy opponents, but there was something about the Shelled Ones that interested the Leader even more.

And, the Leader expected, there was something about them that interested other yautja as well. He knew why.

The Shelled Ones understood the Path; the Code of the Warrior. They were kindred spirits, in their own way.

"Will we Hunt the Shelled Ones, Leader?" a young yautja female asked, one nearly as tall as he. The plain dlex headband of student adorned her ridged brow.

The Leader looked back to the vidscreen. The screen held a infra-red freeze-frame of the Shelled Ones, standing victorious amongst a chamber full of the bodies of the Hard Meat. "In time, my brethren," he answered calmly. "In time."

Surely it was a thing to be looked forward to.

Greatly.

**FIN**


	11. Author's Notes

**Brief Author's notes about "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Aliens & Predator"...**

To clarify, the TMNT in this story are from the comic books. They're specifically of the era of Volume 3, when the Mirage TMNT were being published by Image Comics. This was when Donatello became injured and became a cyborg, Raphael had his face scarred by a gunshot to the face, etc..

This was actually written around 1998 or 1999, but I've been revising it since here and there. I hope you enjoy.

One thing I've considered since then as a sequel to this is **"Donatello vs. Predator,"** an idea which I may revisit depending on the reaction to this story here.


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